China has announced a ban on exports to the United States of gallium, germanium and other key high-tech materials with potential military applications.

China has near global monopolies on these exports, accounting for 98% of global gallium production, 93% of germanium production, and 49% of antimony production.

  • horse_battery_staple@lemmy.worldEnglish
    792·
    16 days ago

    Are they going to ban these exports to Taiwan and the EU as well? If not this will have zero affect for the state actors and the US will just buy through a trading proxy at a higher cost.

    Idiotic policy on both sides. The global trade genie is out of the bottle, only end users will pay the price for these policies.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      522·
      16 days ago

      If not this will have zero affect for the state actors and the US will just buy through a trading proxy at a higher cost.

      I’d define that as an effect, particularly given how the US has been scrambling to insource its tech industry over the last four years. TMSC just ramped up a competitive chip fab in Arizona, for instance.

      Idiotic policy on both sides.

      The argument boils down to each country claiming they need additional security measures aimed at a geopolitical rival. The ramp up to war never looks smart until one side wins.

      • RubberDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        15 days ago

        The Arizona fab is for relatively standard chips, not the high end ones.

        And this is also a step to prepare for an incoming president that has already kicked off a trade war before he even got there.

    • RobotToaster@mander.xyzEnglish
      201·
      16 days ago

      the US will just buy through a trading proxy at a higher cost.

      That’s basically how the ban on imports of Russian oil is working…

  • Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.worldEnglish
    181·
    15 days ago

    Germanium and gallium are not that rare. They’re produced as a byproduct of other types of mining (zinc, aluminum, coal, etc). China has a monopoly on them not because of any kind of special geology, but because they were willing to sell them below cost for decades.

    It won’t take long for alternative sources to spin up and become available, especially because China has been threatening to do this for over a year.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      71·
      15 days ago

      We mine a fair amount here in the US, and I’ve heard a lot of talk about expanding mining operations. I’m guessing it’s one of those cases where it’s just not economical given China’s pricing to extract those metals, and we could probably change that if we needed to.

      So yeah, I’m not too worried about it. Once costs go up, mining companies will get interested and provide supply.

  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
    162·
    16 days ago

    Hmmm… Good thing our mega corpos got all that profit that we benefit from to this day.

    The quality of life is so much better for wage pedon 🤡